Forgetting What is Behind and Straining Toward What is Ahead

Passage: Philippians 3:12-21

In a recent conversation it occurred to me that we reach a turning point at which we do more looking back than looking forward. We spend much of our lives looking forward to milestones, new adventures, and uncharted territory. But then we have moments in which we realize we've experienced all the stuff we were looking forward to. Youth and energy and vitality fade. Activities that were a source of fulfillment and joy become difficult. We begin to look back with more frequency; more regret; and more longing. If we aren’t intentional we buy in to the widely held misconception that our best years have passed.

In Philippians 3 Paul says, essentially, “Don’t waste your time.” Paul isn’t talking about reminiscing, per se. He’s warning against concluding what Bryan Adams does in “The Summer of ‘69”: Those were the best days of my life. Paul says, “They weren’t!” It doesn’t matter how good your life was in the past. It doesn’t matter how bad your life feels now. If you are a believer in Christ, then you live with the promise that the best of what God has to offer is yet to come.

This is why Paul is able to write his letter to the Philippians – arguably the most positive book of the New Testament – from death row. He is free from despair in spite of his present; he is free of nostalgia and self-pity as he reflects on his past. Why? His citizenship is in heaven. And he knows that he will one day go the way of Christ. He will pass through death into an amazing new life. A life free of the suffering and sadness and struggle of this one. Paul speaks for all of us: Our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.

This could be a consolation prize. Or it could be the ultimate prize. It could be our motivation for weathering life’s inevitable disappointments and losses with grace and with hope. This isn’t all there is. This isn’t your one shot at happiness, success, fulfillment or true love. There is something so much better ahead. Wait for it. Hope in it. Strain for it.